Need laptop for uni :D

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MumboJumbo

MumboJumbo

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2 Dec 2006
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Hey guys, so basicaly just discovered ive got into uni and need a laptop.

My budget is what ever gets the job done. Im not looking for a cheap job but not looking to pay through the teeth for little gain. Would be nice to keep it around £1000 or under if its not worth it.

Idealy i want something not too heavy and able to do reasonable gaming. Im not expecting to be playing games that much, but everyone gets bored sometimes and id like it to be able to cope reasonably well. Im also thinking a 17" is what im looking for so i can watch films on it but i may look into 15" due to being a lot lighter.

So what do you suggest? Im not looking to max games out.

:EDIT:

As much as i dislike alieware for being overpriced having been on the dell website i am considering some of them. Have they come more in line now or is it still overpriced for what its offering? IVe yet to look round enough to comfirm it either way.
 
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This is basically exactly what I'm looking for so I'll keep an eye on this :)

I wanted an Alienware, I thought the price had become more reasonable. It hasn't. Their laptops start at £1099 for specs found elsewhere for 700 or so.
 
From my personal experience when i wanted a laptop that could do the very same for £1000 pounds i regretted it.

* A 17 in won't last 2 lectures without a charge as there batteries barely seem to do 1 1/2 hours.
* A sub £1000 pound laptop won't play games too great either (but i guess it will play more now than when i got mine :p )
* And a flash alienware may end up getting nicked as its a sexy laptop.
* films and TV are not really big enough on a 15in laptop from any distance. A laptop also lacks the HDD space to store many films.

But with that £1000 pounds you could build an all right pc or buy a sub 400 pound rig, a budget 22in monitor and Win 7. Then pick up a Netbook for taking notes and such. for a start they have longer battery life, are a lot lighter and cost around 300 quid, they are also a lot more discreet.

In the second year this is what i got and i could play the games i wanted and have enough battery life to do a full day of lectures.

Purely from OC'ers this is what i would get:

Samsung Netbook for 299.99

AMD budget gamer for 369.99 OR Intel Budget Gamer 379.99

then Win 7 upgrade for 65.99 (use the RC for now)

22in Monitor for 132.99

This comes to:

* with AMD: 868.95
* with Intel: 878.95

So then that leaves you with a few quid to spend of Headphones(if you are in halls) and speakers(for Film nights), Keyboard and Mouse.

Obviously shop around a bit - some other sites have similar budget 22in for a few quid less and same with the Netbook. Plus there are loads of different Netbooks available so i would do some research into whats the best atm.
 
I would never spend £1000 on a laptop again they get damaged to much I've had 2 in 2 years.

Sorry I can't suggest just thought I'd add my opinion

9cell batteries are really good much better than my old 6 cell
 
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although, if you're determined to spend £1000 on a laptop, you could buy a nice Lenovo X200 from ebay for that and have enough change to buy a 9-cell battery and fill up the ram to 4GB
 
It's not about building a pc. I want a laptop i can take about, I want portability. I already have a gaming rig as you can see in my signature. If i want to take it up to uni i will but the point is i then have to bring that all back down again and i don't want to keep doing that. Further more im not going to uni to play games. Im going to uni to socialize with a bit of gaming when I have nothing better to do.

But as identified you can see the problem. I want a 17" for films and that, but i want it to it to not be too heavy as well and obviously don't want to always be charging it.

I wont be using it in lectures though as you just don't do that in uni. You make hand notes.

Ill look into the lenovo x200, thanks.

:EDIT:

Lenovo X200 only has a 12.1" screen? far too small.
 
£1,000 should easily get you a decent laptop. The market for laptops has changed radically.

I picked up a dell laptop for £500 which had a P8600, 4Gb Ram, 500Gb HDD and a Blu-ray drive. It even had a graphics card in it, not to mention a 4yr warranty and a backlit keyboard.


£1000 should do you well.
 
What about something like this? Lots of RAM, decent CPU and a very able graphics card. I also added the 9 cell battery in for you.


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40Ghz, 3MB, 1066MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 (64 BIT) - English
15.6in Widescreen High Definition (1366x768) WLED with TrueLife
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
250GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
512MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4570
Fixed Internal DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive including Software
Primary 9-cell 85 WHr Lithium Ion battery
Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)
2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Backlit Keyboard
---------------------------------------------------
£719.02

That's from Dell, the laptop model is a Studio 15, you also get a choice of funky laptop lids although in my opinion plain black looks the best.
 
K1LLSW1TCH said:
What about something like this? Lots of RAM, decent CPU and a very able graphics card. I also added the 9 cell battery in for you.


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40Ghz, 3MB, 1066MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 (64 BIT) - English
15.6in Widescreen High Definition (1366x768) WLED with TrueLife
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
250GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
512MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4570
Fixed Internal DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive including Software
Primary 9-cell 85 WHr Lithium Ion battery
Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)
2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Backlit Keyboard
---------------------------------------------------
£719.02

That's from Dell, the laptop model is a Studio 15, you also get a choice of funky laptop lids although in my opinion plain black looks the best.
Click to expand...

Swap out the hard drive for an SSD like the Crucial 128GB and sticking Windows 7 on it will give you plenty of performance and better battery life.
 
8igdave said:
Lenovo X200 only has a 12.1" screen? far too small.
Click to expand...

coming from someone who's been using a laptop every day for over 4 years (including a year at uni ;)), a 12.1" laptop is a godsend!

what you should do is take your PC up to uni with you, and when you come home between terms / long weekends, bring the laptop. this way, you avoid the hassle of lugging a huge laptop to lectures, a huge PC home every now and then and you can game to your hearts content, inbetween the short short periods of actual work.

trust me on this.

<edit> what Uni are you going to, by the way?
 
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K1LLSW1TCH said:
What about something like this? Lots of RAM, decent CPU and a very able graphics card. I also added the 9 cell battery in for you.


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40Ghz, 3MB, 1066MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 (64 BIT) - English
15.6in Widescreen High Definition (1366x768) WLED with TrueLife
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
250GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
512MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4570
Fixed Internal DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive including Software
Primary 9-cell 85 WHr Lithium Ion battery
Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)
2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Backlit Keyboard
---------------------------------------------------
£719.02

That's from Dell, the laptop model is a Studio 15, you also get a choice of funky laptop lids although in my opinion plain black looks the best.
Click to expand...

Thats looking pritty good, thanks. Ill have a play around with it. See if i can up the HD. Though i really am thinking i want a 17". So might look at the same model with bigger screen.



Aod said:
coming from someone who's been using a laptop every day for over 4 years (including a year at uni ;)), a 12.1" laptop is a godsend!

what you should do is take your PC up to uni with you, and when you come home between terms / long weekends, bring the laptop. this way, you avoid the hassle of lugging a huge laptop to lectures, a huge PC home every now and then and you can game to your hearts content, inbetween the short short periods of actual work.

trust me on this.

<edit> what Uni are you going to, by the way?
Click to expand...

Id rather not leave my pc up there and im going to leeds uni :)

Id like a bigger laptop then that because i have a 24" at home and i now cant stand low resolution screens.
 
The studio XPS 16 comes with a 15.6" screen with a resolution of 1080i, thats not bad. Good resolution and compact. Also it has 4gb of ram and 1gb 4670.

But im totaly stuck on knowing anything about laptop cpu's, is this good enough to play games?

intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P7350 (3M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB)

an extra 30 quid will get me this instead:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600(2.40Ghz, 1066MHz, 3MB)

Only has a 6 cell battery though :/
 
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considering the graphics card, they're all pretty much good enough to play most games (other than Crysis, of course)

i gaurantee that you'll regret hauling a 15, 16 or 17 inch laptop into lectures every day, or even every other day.
 
I wont be taking my laptop to lectures. Ill be writing notes.

This is what im thinking:

£1027

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600(2.40Ghz, 1066MHz, 3MB)
4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card
500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive


3 Year Premium Warranty Support
Primary 6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery
TV tuner as well.

Well i think thats not bad, my only consern is the 6 cell battery. What you guys think?

Its a 15.6" screen with 1080 resolution, sounds perfect.
 
8igdave said:
I wont be taking my laptop to lectures. Ill be writing notes.
Click to expand...
aaaaaah, well in that case, go for the meatiest, beastliest laptop you can find!


8igdave said:
This is what im thinking:

£1027

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600(2.40Ghz, 1066MHz, 3MB)
4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card
500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive


3 Year Premium Warranty Support
Primary 6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery
TV tuner as well.

Well i think thats not bad, my only consern is the 6 cell battery. What you guys think?

Its a 15.6" screen with 1080 resolution, sounds perfect.
Click to expand...

looks pretty good to me. if you're not going to be taking it to lectures, then the battery life isn't really very important. for desktop-replacement machines, the batteries are pretty much just emergency UPS's :)
 
Yeah, well im doing maths ya see so i figure maths is pritty hard to write out on a laptop so it will all be hand written mainly. Not many writing notes.

Reckon ill order then this later today just to see if anyone has any quirms with it. Is qurims a word? lol.
 
8igdave said:
Reckon ill order then this later today just to see if anyone has any quirms with it. Is qurims a word? lol.
Click to expand...

could be... ;) :p

have you had a look at the Vostro 1720? the top-of-the-line model has EIGHT gigs of ram, a 320GB 7200-rpm drive, a C2D P8700 (2.53GHz) and a GeForce 9600M GS, all for just £709 + VAT (free shipping!)
 
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